Portland
Since we couldn't camp in Crater Lake National Park due to all the snow we decided to just push on through and head straight to Portland. We knew we'd be getting in late but that was fine because this way we would have all day to explore the city! We ended up finding a great last minute deal on the cutest little hotel, The Sentinel, right in the heart of downtown Portland. I felt so bad pulling up to this elegant hotel in a very heavily packed Penny, with her windshield covered in bugs, and a bunch of empty Starbucks cups and granola bar wrappers at my feet. To make matters even worse we realized just how unorganized we were when we ended up needing to bring in about 8 bags for ONE night!! I was honestly thankful we were getting in so late because this was pretty embarrassing. We definitely needed to get ourselves reorganized so this doesn't happen again!! Once we finally got checked in and lugged our insane amount of bags to our room we quickly decided we needed a beverage...or five! We freshened up a bit, grabbed our map of the city, and headed down to the lobby bar for a quiet drink and maybe a bite to eat so we could try and plan our day in Portland...or so we thought.
If you're ever in Portland and you want to go out to a very popular bar where all the locals hang out allow me to suggest The Sentinel Hotel's lobby bar - Jackknife! It became abundantly clear we would not be having that quiet drink after all. The bar had a really cool vibe to it though, kind of like 1920's meets modern day. Everything from the walls to the bar itself is made up of old reclaimed wood which gives it that old school Speak Easy feel. The dim lighting coupled with the dark leather couches and bar stools also enhance that old rustic charm. You're quickly brought back to modern day however by the heavily bass driven, electronic mash up that the DJ is spinning. Haley and I worked our way up to the bar and decided on two Dirty Martinis to start off the night. We barely had time to cheers and take our first sip when we were approached by a few locals, probably in their late 20's early 30's, who most certainly had come here straight from work. We chitchatted about our trip and actually received a lot of great advice; they were able to give us much more insight into Portland than our map and brochures ever would. For them the night was early and this was only their first stop. They kindly invited us along for the rest of their Friday night bar crawl but we were far too exhausted for all that. They did buy us another round of martini's before leaving which was sweet of them. We closed out our tabs, took our free drinks, and headed back to the room so we could catch up on some sleep!
We woke up refreshed and ready to explore Portland! First up on our agenda was food; we were starving!! Our new friends from last night suggested this place called Tasty n Alder so we headed that way, only to find it would be about an hour wait. We put our names in and decided to walk around town. I suppose we wouldn't have gotten the true Portland experience if it had been a warm sunny day, so when the rain began to fall we just shrugged on our jackets and embraced it. This town is so cute though, it seems to have a perfect mix of "Big City" and "Small Town" vibes. As we were walking around we saw beautiful murals on just about every street corner! Most of the stores weren't open yet so we window shopped our way through downtown. We did come across this four-story, block-wide used bookstore that we absolutely had to go in! I've never seen anything quite like it; there were just stacks and stacks and stacks of old used books! I've been searching for an old book called The Lion's Paw ever since we read it in school when I was in 4th grade. I thought perhaps in a store of this size the chances might be pretty good of finding it; sadly I was mistaken. Haley on the other hand had great success, she collects really unique or inscribed versions of Jane Eyre and they had quite the selection to choose from! We could have spent hours inside that place but our hour was up so we checked out and headed back to the restaurant.
If I lived in Portland I would be a million pounds because of Tasty n Alder...it was just that good! They have a small plates, tapas style menu with very unique options. I had the Tasty Hangtown Fry; which consisted of fried oysters, bacon lardons, melted cheddar cheese, on top of a buttermilk biscuit and served in a skillet. The menu itself is a bit confusing because everything is so unusual but when our waitress began describing each dish it became increasingly hard to choose. Even their drinks are eclectic and fun; they have an assortment of Champagne Cocktails, Bloody Mary's, and Grown Ass Milkshakes! Naturally we each started with a Champagne Cocktail, then tried a specialty Bloody Mary with our food, and ended with a Grown Ass Milkshake for dessert! We left feeling very fat and very happy...and honestly very tired. As we worked on walking off that amazing brunch we decided to swing by Starbucks to wake ourselves up and head to our next stop; Multnomah Falls!
